Hurricanes are a much-studied phenomenon. While there is much which is not understood, the necessary conditions for formation are thought to be well-understood. One of these conditions is that a thunderstorm passes over an area of oceanic water which has been heated to at least 80°-82° F. at a depth of at least 150 feet. The air from the surface of the ocean, which is warm and humid, begins to rapidly rise. As it rises, the water vapor in the air condenses, forming rain droplets and storm clouds, and releasing heat in the form of latent heat of condensation. This latent heat warms cool air above it, causing it to rise. Warm, humid air from the ocean surface replaces the rising air. As this cycle progresses, heat from the ocean surface is drawn into the atmosphere, creating a pattern of circulating wind. Under the proper conditions, such as appropriate amounts of wind shear and pressure gradients, the hurricane may fully develop.
Articles by Ross N. Hoffman in the February, 2002 issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, entitled Controlling the Global Weather, and in the October, 2004 issue of Scientific American, entitled Controlling Hurricanes, underscore the importance of small changes in temperature, and that the most effective way to limit wind damage caused by hurricane winds would be to make “the greatest modifications to the beginning temperature near the storm's eye.” Alterations of temperature of as little as 0.5° C. had effects which extended as far as 500-600 miles from the eye.
There have been previous attempts to prevent the formation of hurricanes. In the early 1960s, in an attempt to create ancillary storms adjacent a hurricane to draw energy therefrom, areas near the hurricane were seeded with silver iodine crystals, with inconclusive results. Since then, weather planes have been flown into hurricanes at up to 40,000 ft., releasing chemicals at different points and time intervals in an attempt to mitigate the power of the storm. Results, of this project were non-conclusive.
Since the conditions necessary for formation of hurricanes is generally known, their formation and path can be predicted to a certain degree, using information collected by weather satellites and other equipment which gathers meteorological information.